sound problem in 8.10

Hi :)

Hopefully it's something early in either of these 2 guides. Note that very similar end-result can be caused by radically different issues. It might be worth working through these trouble-shooting guides separately for each machine rather than relying on a particular answer resolving the issue for all.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingSoundProblems

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshooting

If these haven't worked for one of your friends then it might be worth their time to post their question in here but keep it brief.
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi,

In order to gather essential troubleshooting information about your sound card, please first follow this procedure:

Step 1: Open Terminal from "Applications->Accessories->
Terminal"

Step 2: Run the following 2 commands (copy/paste each command into the Terminal and then hit <enter> after each command)

wget -O alsa-info.sh http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-info.sh

bash alsa-info.sh

When the alsa-info.sh script asks "Do you want to run this script? [y/n]", press y and then hit <enter> to make sure the script actually runs. Please send us the full terminal output after the script has actually run.

Step 3: Run the following command. The command STARTS with the word cat and ENDS with the word snd. So please copy-paste the ENTIRE command below into a Terminal, press enter, then enter password when sudo asks for password, then press enter again.

cat /proc/asound/cards; sudo aptitude install gnome-alsamixer asoundconf-gtk alsa-utils flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound ; asoundconf list; aplay -l; sudo lshw -C sound; ls -lart /dev/snd; cat /dev/sndstat; lspci -nn ; lsmod | grep snd

Step 4: Please post results (copy/paste terminal output) on this thread

Step 5: Please also report on this thread if you cannot hear sound through the speakers, the headphones or cannot hear sound on both.

Step 6: Please also specify the exact model and make of your PC (if possible) on this thread

Step 7: If you are using a dual boot system (with Windows and Ubuntu installed on separate partitions),
then make sure to set the sound volume in Windows to a high level before booting into Ubuntu.
Also make sure to use the special function keys in Windows to make sure the loudspeakers are physically switched ON and working properly in Windows before installing and testing Ubuntu. This step is necessary with certain Toshiba Tecra laptops.

Step 8: Experiment with the audio settings in gnome-alsamixer and asoundconf-gtk until you get sound (hopefully)

Step 9: In System/Administration/Users and Groups , make sure that your user and the root user are members of the following 5 groups:

pulse

pulse-access

pulse-rt

audio

video

Step 10: Run the command gnome-volume-control and set the Sound Theme to "No sounds" (Sound Theme is also accessible via System > Preferences > Sound)

Step 11: Try connecting headphones to different audio jacks/ports on the backpanel of the sound card until you hopefully hear sound

Step 12: If you happen to have two soundcards installed in your pc, one integrated into the motherboard and one inserted into a PCI slot, then try removing the PCI audio card, reboot your pc and retest sound using only the motherboard's soundchip.

======================================================================================================

Please also read the following pages

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/sound-solutions-for-ubuntu-904-jaunty-users.html

http://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/audio_intel_hda (check for correct /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf options at bottom of this page)

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshooting

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=789578&highlight=audacity

for some initial suggestions.

You should add the following string to the /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf file

options snd-hda-intel model=YOUR_MODEL

Valid model names (that replace YOUR_MODEL) depending on the codec chip, can be found at

http://kernel.ubuntu.com/git?p=ubuntu/ubuntu-jaunty.git;a=blob_plain;f=Documentation/sound/alsa/ALSA-Configuration.txt

If you do not know your codec chip name, you can execute the following Terminal command to find out:

cat /proc/asound/card*/codec* | grep Codec

Each combination of audio codec, audio mixer and audio device name requires a very specific configuration in the alsa-base.conf file, if the audio chipset does not work out-of-the-box.

Make sure to set all channels to high volume levels in gnome-alsamixer.

Make sure all the different speakers (including 'Front', 'Master', and 'PCM") are NOT muted and NOT set to low volume levels in gnome-alsamixer.

If sound still does not work, try upgrading ALSA to the newest version, reboot and retest sound.

ALSA upgrade procedure is here:

http://monespaceperso.org/blog-en/2009/05/09/upgrade-alsa-1020-on-ubuntu-jaunty-904/

Kind regards,

Mark